Brookville

Life in the Shade

Opening with a great Coldplay knockoff called “Blue Morning”, Brookville’s second LP is nothing if not melodic. However, the simple strings, warm synth blankets, and hushed horns serve more as a generic-rock lullaby than a solid album. Sure, the modern-lounge sounds of “Nothing’s Meant to Last” and guitar/synth/horn sweep of “Golden” are fine songs, but the track-to-track differentiation gets vaguer as the album presses on. And at 59 minutes, Brookville centerpiece (and Ivy co-founder) Andy Chase’s generic-to-the-point-of-boredom lyrics really push the meaning of an album so-appropriately titled Life in the Shade. Without irony, the title track happens to be the worst lite-rock offender of the bunch. The Shade is nice, but it’s doubtful you’ll want to spend a lifetime in it (or even an hour, for that matter).

Life in the Shade

Evan Sawdey started contributing to PopMatters in late 2005, and has also had his work featured in publications such as SLUG Magazine, The Metro (U.K.), Soundvenue Magazine (Denmark), the Daily Dot, and many more. Evan has been a guest on HuffPost Live, RevotTV's "Revolt Live!", and WNYC's Soundcheck (an NPR affiliate), was the Executive Producer for the Good With Words: A Tribute to Benjamin Durdle album (available for free), and wrote the liner notes for the 2011 re-release of Andre Cymone's hit 1985 album A.C. (Big Break Records), the 2012 re-release of 'Til Tuesday's 1985 debut Voices Carry (Hot Shot Records), and many others. He currently resides in Chicago, Illinois. You can follow him @SawdEye should you be so inclined.